Wednesday, 27 November 2013

Jolting the defence establishment in Rawalpindi, Pakistan’s
prime minister Nawaz Sharif has named Lieutenant General (Lt Gen) Raheel Sharif
as Pakistan’s next army chief, say reliable defence sources in that country.
Currently a three-star general, Raheel Sharif will be promoted to four-star rank
tomorrow. On Friday he will take over as chief of army staff (COAS) from
General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, who has headed the Pakistan Army for six years since
2007, when he took over command from General Pervez Musharraf.

Simultaneously, Lt Gen Rashad Mehmood will be promoted and
appointed chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee (CJCSC). General
Kayani is currently the CJCSC, in addition to his own job as COAS, since the
retirement of General Khalid Shamim Wynne on October 8. The CJSCS performs a
planning and coordination role that is significantly less powerful than that of
the COAS, even though the CJSCS is a four-star general like the COAS.

In choosing his namesake, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has
overruled the recommendations of General Kayani, who reportedly suggested that Lt
Gen Rashad Mehmood be appointed army chief and Lt Gen Haroon Aslam be made
CJCSC. In picking his own army chief against the advice of Gen Kayani, Mr
Sharif has significantly asserted his authority over the military.

Although junior to other contenders, Lt Gen Sharif was a
realistic contender because of his close relationship with the PM’s family. However,
Nawaz Sharif has a poor record in choosing army chiefs. All four chiefs
selected by him earlier eventually turned against him. Gen Asif Nawaz Janjua,
who died in the saddle in 1983, had testy relations with Mr Sharif; after his
death Janjua’s family alleged that “his enemies” had poisoned the chief. His
next pick, Gen Abdul Waheed Kakar induced Mr Sharif to resign in 1993, along
with the president with whom he was at loggerheads, Ghulam Ishaq Khan. In 1996,
Gen Jehangir Karamat resigned in protest, the only Pakistani army chief ever to
have done so. Mr Sharif’s fourth pick as chief, General Pervez Musharraf, evicted
him in a coup in 1999, leading to a long exile in Saudi Arabia.

Mr Sharif’s latest appointee, Lt Gen Raheel Sharif,
possesses all the credentials needed for the top job. Commissioned into in the
Frontier Force Rifles, he commanded the Gujranwala-based 30 Corps in his
current rank. His name was amongst the three offered by Gen Kayani to head the
Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), along with that of Lt Gen Rashad Mehmood;
eventually the third, Lt Gen Zahir-ul-Islam, was chosen. Earlier, while heading
the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) at Kakul, he shifted the emphasis of
training from conventional warfare (i.e. against India) to asymmetric warfare
(i.e. counter terrorism). Though Lt Gen Sharif was posted in Kakul before Osama
bin Laden was discovered and killed in Abbottabad, at the PMA’s doorstep, the
reconstructed account of Osama’s last years indicate that the Al Qaeda leader had
indeed been his neighbour whilst at the academy.

Interestingly, Lt Gen Sharif is the younger brother of one
of Pakistan military heroes, Major Shabbir Sharif, who was awarded the
Nishan-e-Haidar (Pakistan’s version of the Param Vir Chakra) for gallantry in
the 1971 war. Only ten Pakistanis have won this award so far.

The new CJCSC, Lt Gen Rashad Mehmood from the Baluch
regiment, is a native Punjabi like Raheel Sharif. Currently serving as chief of
general staff (CGS) --- the traditional springboard to the COAS office --- he
was the front-runner. Besides commanding the prestigious 4 Corps, which is
responsible for defending Lahore, Mehmood had galvanized the “C” Wing of the
ISI, which conducts counter-terrorism operations against jihadi groups, some of
them backed by the ISI itself.

General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the chain-smoking enigma who
will depart after a six-year tenure as COAS (including a three-year extension
granted in 2010), is currently about 8 years senior to his corps commanders and
senior staff officers. While that gives Kayani complete control, Lt Gen Raheel
Sharif would take some time to stamp his authority over other senior commanders
who are also his contemporaries.

Gen Kayani had engineered an unprecedented course correction
in Pakistan’s military doctrine, directing his army to combat a “multifaceted
threat” from terrorists and separatists, rather than focusing only on India.
Speaking at PMA Kakul on Aug 14, 2012, Gen Kayani declared that the war against
terrorism was Pakistan’s war, not just that of the army.

Given the Pakistani Army’s internal safeguards that keep
radical Islamists out of the top hierarchy, Raheel Sharif is likely to follow
the same line. For an army that could soon be launching an offensive into North
Waziristan, where it would face bloody fighting against the Tehrik-e-Taliban
Pakistan (TTP), the change of leadership comes at a pivotal moment.

Tuesday, 26 November 2013

The world’s
fourth most powerful military worries that negative media coverage is eroding
its image. For decades after 1947, even through the humiliating rout by the
Chinese in 1962, India’s press placed the military on a pedestal. Foreign
correspondents who rode into Dhaka with the Indian military in 1971 described
our jawans fondly, even admiringly. This is no longer so. Now everyone is fair
game for a brash, iconoclastic new breed of journalists and news organisations
that operate in real time on digital media platforms. This is evident from the on-going
feeding frenzy around one of the media’s own --- a newsmagazine editor who
faces accusations of rape.

The
military community, both serving and retired, finds it hard to deal with this new
environment. In forum after forum where I meet the military, officers bitterly criticise
what they call an anti-national media and an ungrateful nation. They point to
numerous poorly sourced news articles critical of the military to dismiss even
legitimate criticism.

Critics of
the military reject this prickliness with the jibe that the services are stuck
in a time warp and must understand that they too are subject to scrutiny. But
that would be short sighted because self-esteem is a crucial driver that
induces soldiers, sailors and airmen to function in professional situations
where death is a real possibility. If militaries were compensated monetarily
for the risks they encounter, employee costs would be unaffordable. The respect
that a military is accorded, therefore, should be viewed as cost-free
remuneration that drives soldiers to do what they do.

One winter
morning in the early 1980s, I was a young lieutenant motorcycling down from Ferozepur
to Delhi for a weekend of leave. With my shiny new Yezdi (yes, there was once a
mobike called that!) stalled by a tyre puncture, I was admiring the mustard crop
in the fields around me when a passing farmer saw my uniform and stopped his tractor.
He loaded my Yezdi on his trailer and took me to a tyre repair shop in Moga,
the nearest town, waving aside my offer to pay him. The tyre-shop owner
peremptorily told his other customers to wait, fetched me a steaming glass of
milk, repaired my tyre and had me back on the road in 20 minutes. There was no
question of payment --- it was only a puncture, he said. This public regard kept
us functioning as soldiers, not the princely Rs 790/- that I was drawing each
month.

Yet, the defence
services are not beyond criticism, nor can the military justifiably dismiss all
criticism as anti-national. So sensitive has the military become that the top
brass even allege that the military’s image is being deliberately smeared by inimical
journalists acting at the behest of bureaucrats, civil society and politicians.

The truth
is that the military knows very little about the world of journalism and has no
plan in place to learn more. It has no filters to distinguish one news report
from another --- credible from amateurish, one that needs rebuttal from one
that should be ignored. Instead of a careful evaluation of reportage, what
comes to the fore is an unstoppable urge --- rooted perhaps in military
training --- to respond, and respond now. Even as officers respond to a news
report with reflexive denials and inadequately crosschecked “facts”, the
digitisation of the communications space permits others inside the organisation
to pass on contradictory narratives. A senior television journalist who
specialises in this tit-for-tat says that 70 per cent of the calls that he
receives contradicting army statements come from the rank and file, not from
officers.

Nor does
the army know when to be silent. In the recent intrusions in Keran, J&K,
top generals appeared repeatedly before the media, promising a swift end to the
operations. With no end in sight the conspiracy theories began, terming the
intrusion “another Kargil”. Why did the army set deadlines when a simple
statement could have sufficed --- that the army has the situation under control
and would brief the media when operations were concluded?

This
readiness to comment on on-going operations is matched by an inexplicable need
to cloak administrative matters in secrecy. Instead of letting journalists file
“exclusives” and “exposes” on issues like rape by military men, there must be a
website where administrative statistics are freely available? The generals seem
unwilling to admit that 1.6 million soldiers, sailors and airmen represent a
slice of society that will reflect the trends and ailments of the broader
society they are drawn from.

The military
operates in the harshest of environments. Things will inevitably go wrong, and the
military must realise that suppressing the truth is neither feasible nor
desirable from a professional standpoint. Misrepresenting or denying a bungle
may seem convenient, but this engenders a dangerous culture of tolerance in an
organisation where news of a cover up can hardly be suppressed. Like other vibrant
organisations, the military must have the confidence to acknowledge mistakes and
institute measures to remedy them.

With survey
after survey underlining that the military remains India’s most respected
organisation in the eyes of the public, the generals must have the confidence
to step back and unhurriedly prepare a media plan. In 2003-04, the army set up
a new department to interface with the media --- the Army Liaison Cell. The ALC
must now be manned by specialists, officers who have worked as journalists, who
can conduct daily briefings, put mistakes and even debacles in perspective, and
release harmless information that continues to be treated as secret.

Monday, 25 November 2013

Afghan leaders since King Amanullah have used Loya Jirgas to gain popular backing for difficult decisions

By Ajai
Shukla

Business Standard, 25th Nov 13

The Loya
Jirga that gathered in Kabul last week, an assembly of more than 2,000 handpicked
tribal elders, chiefs and community leaders, has successfully made President
Hamid Karzai seem the most unbending protector of Afghan interests.

On Sunday,
after four days of closed-door discussions on the draft of a security agreement
with the US that would allow thousands of American troops to remain in
Afghanistan after 2014, the assembly issued a statement: "The Loya Jirga
requests the president to sign the agreement before the end of 2013."

"Given
the current situation in, and Afghanistan's need... the contents of this
agreement as a whole is endorsed by the members of this Loya Jirga."

This
constitutes a popular green light for the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA)
that Mr Karzai’s government has negotiated with Washington. The BSA meets all the
US conditions for retaining an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers in
Afghanistan even after the drawdown of the NATO-led International Security
Force is completed next year.

Despite his
nail biting brinkmanship while negotiating the BSA with Washington, Mr Karzai eventually
conceded contentious US demand for legal jurisdiction over American soldiers
and civilian contractors operating in Afghanistan and for allowing US Special
Forces to continue counterterrorism raids on Afghan homes “in exceptional
circumstances.”

Most
analysts agree that President Karzai had little choice. The BSA is crucial for
the survival of the Afghan government after the NATO drawdown next year. The
Afghan National Security Force (ANSF), which will number some 3,52,000 troops
and policemen, will need help in combating an inevitable Taliban offensive, say
experts.

Yet,
President Karzai, with an eye on his legacy, has dextrously ensured that the
BSA’s ownership is transferred to the Loya Jirga and, therefore, to the people
of Afghanistan. While inaugurating the assembly on Thursday, Nov 21, Mr Karzai thundered
that his successor, not him, would sign the BSA after presidential elections
early in 2014. Mr Karzai is constitutionally ineligible for another tenure as
president, having already served two terms.

Washington,
however, insists that the BSA must be signed this year. The US says that any
further delay will result in a full pull out of NATO forces --- the so-called
“zero-option”. Now Mr Karzai has arranged political cover, with speaker after
speaker at the Loya Jirga pleading with him to sign the BSA immediately.

The Loya
Jirga head, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, declared he would resign and leave the
country if the BSA were not signed this year. News agency AFP reports that other
delegates shouted for Mr Karzai to “Sign in, sign it”.

"They
(the Americans) have accepted all the conditions set out by him (Karzai) and us
(the Loya Jirga). It would hurt Afghanistan if he does not accept it,"
said Mujadedi.

The ball is
now in President Karzai’s court. The Taliban has warned that anyone supporting
the BSA would be committing a “historical crime”. Yet, with the ANSF, still
consisting mainly of light infantry and Special Forces units, with little heavy
weaponry, logistical backup, medical resources or air support, the continued
presence of US and European trainers and Special Forces remains crucial.

President
Karzai has used the Loya Jirga skilfully. Often misrepresented as a
centuries-old institution, it is in fact a political assembly that was invented
less than a century ago by the founder of modern Afghanistan, King Amanullah. Combining
elements of traditional tribal culture with the representative concepts of
western parliamentary democracy, King Amanullah held three Loya Jirgas in 1923,
1924 and 1928, to gain popular support for his political, legal and
administrative reforms and for Afghanistan’s first constitution.

In 1964 the
Loya Jirga was first written into Afghanistan’s constitution, and has remained
a feature of all four constitutions since. A series of myths were created to
give it added legitimacy, such as the fabricated notion that legendary Afghan
monarch, Ahmed Shah Durrani was crowned by a Loya Jirga in 1747. In fact Loya
Jirgas have been handy political instruments that Afghan leaders have used to
rubberstamp their decisions and imbue them with a timeless legitimacy.

This is
easily done for the simple reason that the leader decides the guest list. Each
of the 2,500-odd invitees to the recently concluded Loya Jirga was handpicked
by Mr Karzai’s office. The Loya Jirga can be manipulated far more conveniently
than those of the Afghan parliament, which consists of elected, not invited,
members.

Saturday, 23 November 2013

The MoD's procurement chief, Satish Agnihotri, is respected by private sector for engaging in unorthodox ways

By Ajai
Shukla

Business Standard, 23rd Nov 13

A new and
unconventional mechanism holds genuine promise for easing the private sector’s
entry into indigenous defence production. On Saturday, at the Institute for
Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in Delhi, the MoD’s procurement chief ---
Director General (Acquisitions) Satish B Agnihotri --- and a group of senior ministry
of defence (MoD) officials will meet with private sector defence heads,
discussing and resolving their difficulties.

This will
be the third such meeting of this informal, but highly effective, forum.
Agnihotri instituted this outreach after making the unprecedented decision to
resolve private industry structural problems in face-to-face meetings at the
IDSA on Saturdays.

Since the
private sector was allowed into defence production in 2001, policy hurdles,
discriminatory taxation regimes and organisational bias in favour of the public
sector have placed structural hurdles before private companies hoping to
benefit from India’s enormous defence market.

“For the
first time in a decade, we are beginning to feel like we are not talking to a
wall,” says Rahul Chaudhary, co-chief of Ficci’s defence committee and CEO of
Tata Power (SED).

Achievements
of the Saturday Forum include the issue last week of a tender for four Landing
Platform Docks (LPDs), giant 21,000-tonne helicopter carrying ships that will
be built by India’s private sector in consortium under the “Buy & Make
(Indian) category. Also initiated last week was a project for building a
Battlefield Management System (BMS) under the “Make” procurement category.

Private
industry chiefs say that individual problems are not discussed during the
Saturday meetings --- only issues that relate to the entire industry. For that
reason, the private sector representation is restricted to industry bodies CII,
Ficci and Assocham.

“If private
companies come and meet me one-on-one, it sometimes spells trouble for me,”
said Agnihotri at a Ficci function on Thursday evening. “So I would rather meet
with industry bodies.”

Agnihotri
says that his plan for creating a role for the private sector has centred on
small, sustainable steps rather than spectacular policy changes. Like many
officials and industrialists who are adopting Tendulkar similes, Agnihotri too
uses a cricket simile to illustrate the bureaucratic and political difficulties
in making bold changes.

“Defence
has certain peculiar characteristics… the outfield is slow. If you just keep
waiting to score boundaries, I’m sorry but you will not score very much. The
trick lies in singles and twos, which one can take,” he says.

This
Saturday’s meeting will be Agnihotri’s last, as he has been transferred out on
promotion as secretary in the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. On the
agenda are measures for giving MSMEs a larger role in defence production.

“One man
has made a substantial difference in a very short time. We hope this initiative
continues,” stated Jayant Patil of L&T, who handles R&D in Ficci’s
defence committee.

Thursday, 21 November 2013

The site in Kabul where a Loya Jirga convenes today to vet a proposed security arrangement with the US

By Ajai
Shukla

Business Standard, 21st Nov 13

Washington
and Kabul appear to be close to crossing two major hurdles that stand in the
way of a Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) that the US needs for retaining a
residual force in Afghanistan from 2015 onwards, after US and NATO-led forces largely
withdraw from that country.

The first
is an agreement between Washington and Kabul that would allow US forces to
operate effectively, without being subject to Afghan law. This hurdle may have
been crossed on Tuesday night when US Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly agreed,
in a telephone conversation with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, that President
Barack Obama would write him a letter acknowledging US “mistakes” that had
“hurt Afghans”, apparently referring to intrusive raids on Afghans’ residences
over the last 12 years.

In return, Kabul
will permit US Special Forces to continue counterterrorism raids on Afghan
homes “in exceptional circumstances”, for example when US lives are at stake.
Kabul has already accepted another US red line, which is granting Washington
legal jurisdiction over US soldiers and civilian contractors operating in
Afghanistan. That means US soldiers charged with violating Afghan rights or
breaking Afghan law would be prosecuted in American, not Afghan, courts.

US law
mandates this requirement. Failure to reach such an agreement with Baghdad had
led to a full US pullout from Iraq.

For a
beleaguered Kabul, a full western military pullout from Afghanistan, which was termed
the “zero option”, might decisively turn the tables in favour of the Taliban. A
full pullout would also have jeopardised $4.1 billion in annual military aid
that donors have pledged for the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).

If
negotiating the BSA has been difficult, another hurdle lies ahead. President
Karzai has ruled that to come into being, the BSA draft must be passed by a
Loya Jirga --- a gathering of notables under Afghan tradition --- which will
convene in Kabul on Thursday and probably discuss the matter for several days
before arriving at a conclusion.

If the Loya
Jirga accepts the BSA, it would be the first time Afghanistan voluntarily
accepts a foreign military presence. There is speculation that Karzai has
convened the Loya Jirga in order to provide political cover for this deeply
contentious decision. But uncertainty remains; the Loya Jirga has previously
endorsed the Afghan president’s decision, but the 3,000-odd delegates cannot disregard
Afghanistan’s vaunted love for independence, and the improbable legend that
Afghans are raised on --- of having defeated three occupying superpowers (19th
century Britain, 20th century Soviet Union, and 21st
century America).

Notwithstanding
this, most Afghans pragmatically realise that the fledgling ANSF would lose
ground against the Taliban, were it not backed by a residual US force and by
continued US logistical support. This would be especially so if a united
Taliban were backed by Pakistani material, moral and direct military support.

Reminding Afghans
of the deeply contentious nature of this argument, a car bomb on Saturday
killed six Afghans outside the Kabul Polytechnic campus, where the Loya Jirga
will convene. The same day the Taliban warned that anyone supporting the BSA
would be committing a “historical crime”. After fighting the US, NATO and the
ANSF for years based on President Obama’s declared pullout time line of 2014,
the Taliban does not welcome the prospect of a residual US force remaining in
Afghanistan indefinitely.

Washington
has not yet put a figure on the strength of the residual force, but US
government sources have indicated that it would comprise of 8,000 to 12,000
troops. Of these, an expected 3,000 to 4,000 would be contributed by NATO
countries, which would start making troop commitments once Washington and Kabul
finalise the BSA. The residual force would include Special Forces and units
equipped with drones for counterterrorist strikes in Afghanistan and in the
border areas of Pakistan.

President
Karzai had negotiated hard for security guarantees for Afghanistan by the
residual US and NATO force. But Washington is apprehensive about being dragged
into a military confrontation with Pakistan, and so US negotiators have managed
to satisfy Kabul with a less forceful assurance of Afghanistan’s security.

The ANSF,
which includes both army and police forces, already consists of almost 3,52,000
persons. Most military forces consist of light infantry and Special Forces
units, with little heavy weaponry, logistical backup, medical resources or air
support.

The
icy deadlock between the ministry of defence (MoD) and AgustaWestland, is
hurtling towards confrontation. In New Delhi, on Wednesday, the MoD held its
first face-to-face meeting with AgustaWestland since February, when a contract
to supply India with 12 AW-101 helicopters was derailed by allegations of
bribes paid to Indian officials through illegal middlemen.

At
the meeting, which MoD sources describe as a “hearing”, AgustaWestland told
Upamanyu Chatterjee, the novelist who is also the joint secretary in charge of
land and air systems acquisition, that there was no wrongdoing by the
Anglo-Italian helicopter company, or by its parent company, Finmeccanica, in
winning the contract.

AgustaWestland
also reminded Chatterjee that the matter was still under arbitration by
nominating its arbitrator. The MoD is required to nominate an arbitrator by Dec
3, while a third arbitrator must be nominated by mutual consent.

In
a subsequent press release later, AgustaWestland stated: “In accordance with
the rules of arbitration under the Indian Arbitration and Conciliation Act
1996, AgustaWestland is nominating former Supreme Court Judge and former Chief
Justice High Court Kerala, Justice Mr. B.N. Srikrishna; a well-known jurist of
unimpeachable experience and reputation.”

AgustaWestland
is required to respond to a “final” show-cause notice that the MoD issued on
Oct 21. Business Standard understands that the response will come in only on Nov
25 or 26, when it is due.

The
company is apprehensive that, in fixing the Wednesday meeting, the MoD was
merely enacting a charade of consultation before unilaterally cancelling the
contract. This after Defence Minister AK Antony appeared to have pre-determined
the outcome by declaring publicly on Oct 30 that AgustaWestland had “violated
the contract.”

AgustaWestland
had retorted then that, “none of the legal processes looking into this matter
have been completed.” The company told Business Standard that “the outcome of
the proper legal processes should be awaited.”

The
contract, worth Euro 556 million (Rs 4,700 crore at current rates), was signed
in 2010 for specially protected helicopters to transport high Indian officials
and visiting foreign dignitaries in comfort and safety. Three AW-101
helicopters have already been delivered to the Indian Air Force (IAF).

The
controversy had erupted on Feb 12 when prosecutors in Milan, Italy arrested
Finmeccanica chief ,Giuseppe Orsi, on charges of bribing Indian officials to
secure the VVIP helicopter contract. Orsi headed AgustaWestland in 2010, when
the IAF contract was signed.

The
Indian MoD immediately froze the contract (three helicopters had already been
delivered), suspended payments to AgustaWestland, and initiated an enquiry by
the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Sunday, 17 November 2013

Defence Minister AK Antony, in a markedly different element from his native Kerala, reviews a Russian guard of honour

By Ajai
Shukla

Business Standard, 17th Nov 13

With
snowflakes sprinkling the dignitaries gathered on Saturday at the Sevmash
Shipyard in Severodvinsk, Russia, Defence Minister AK Antony commissioned the
aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya into the Indian Navy. The 44,500-tonne warship
will now sail to its home base in Karwar, India, from where it will partner the
smaller, 24,000-tonne INS Viraat, currently the navy’s flagship. Sixteen years
after INS Vikrant was decommissioned, the navy will again boast of two aircraft
carriers in its fleet.

“Aircraft carriers have been part of the Indian Navy’s force structure
since our independence and have effectively served the country over the past
five decades or so. The induction of ‘Vikramaditya’ with its integral MiG-29K
fighters and Kamov-31 helicopters, not only reinforces this central policy, but
also adds a new dimension to our navy’s operational capabilities,” said Mr
Antony at the event.

Ending the acrimony over Russia’s five-year delay in delivering the
Vikramaditya, and the three-fold cost increase from $947 million agreed in 2004
to $2.3 billion today, Mr Antony said the Vikramaditya “truly symbolizes the
time-tested special and privileged strategic partnership between our two great
nations.”

Navy chief, Admiral DK Joshi, said the Vikramaditya would provide the
navy a two-carrier capability in the medium term, and bridge the period between
when the obsolescent INS Viraat is decommissioned, and the indigenous INS
Vikrant enters service. The Vikrant is being built at Cochin Shipyard, but will
not be commissioned before 2015. Earlier, the navy had said the Viraat would
remain in service beyond 2018.

Sevmash shipyard has comprehensively rebuilt the Vikramaditya over the
preceding decade. It was originally built in Ukraine in 1987 as the cruiser,
Baku, which could carry a complement of Yak-38 vertical take-off and landing
(VTOL) aircraft. Russia’s naval chief, Admiral Gorshkov, believed that the Baku
should be a full-fledged aircraft carrier, not a “compromise carrier” that it
was. In 1991, when the Soviet Union’s collapse placed Baku in Azerbaijan, the
vessel was renamed Admiral Gorshkov. Eventually, a bankrupt Moscow mothballed the
vessel in 1995.

In 2004, India signed a contract to repair and refurbish the Gorshkov,
and convert it to a full-fledged aircraft carrier that could operate the
MiG-29K fighter. Since this required a runway both for take-off and for a
wire-arrested landing, the Gorshkov had to be converted from a VTOL to a
short-take-off-but-arrested-recovery (STOBAR) carrier. This required a 2,500-tonne
ski jump and arrestor gear to be fitted, as well as major modifications in 1,750
of the ship’s 2,500 compartments. New aircraft and ammunition lifts, engine
boilers, diesel generators, water distilling and reverse osmosis plants,
air-conditioning and sensors and weapons had to be fitted, a task that
eventually took 115 months instead of the contract 52 months.

With eight steam boilers running on high speed diesel, the Gorshkov can
work up a top speed of 29.5 knots (55 km per hour). Her onboard generators
produce 18 megawatts of power, enough to run a small city. She is a two-acre
chunk of sovereign Indian territory that can operate 13,000 km from India.

This floating air base can be parked 12 nautical miles (22 km) from
another country’s coastline, i.e. just outside its territorial waters. The
Vikramaditya has 30 aircraft on board, which includes a mix of MiG-29K fighters
and helicopters like the Kamov-31 for airborne early warning (AEW), Kamov-28
for anti-submarine warfare (ASW), and Dhruv or Chetak utility helicopters. The
versatile MiG-29K, with an operating range of 1,300 km (extendable to 3,500 km
with in-flight refuelling), provides deadly reach to the Vikramaditya. The
“aviation complex” is controlled by the Resistor-E radar complex, which
provides air traffic control services and precisely guides incoming MiG-29Ks to
within 30 metres of the flight deck.

The name “Vikramaditya” literally translates into “Strong as the Sun.”
The aircraft carrier’s motto is Strike Far, Strike Sure.”

Saturday, 16 November 2013

In his book
“Courage and Conviction”, the country’s most controversial army chief, General
VK Singh, follows a tradition of autobiographical immodesty. Of the handful of chiefs
who penned memoirs, General JJ Singh titled his book, “A Soldier’s General”.
General KV Krishna Rao, more modestly chose the title, “In the Service of the
Nation.”

VK Singh’s
book will certainly outsell those of his predecessors. It is a no-holds-barred
attack on the United Progressive Alliance government, which denied him extra time
in office by turning down his plea to revise his date of birth. When he sued
his political masters, the Supreme Court was as unsympathetic. Left to lick his
wounds, a lame-duck VK Singh treated his remaining four months in uniform as a
launch pad into politics, almost taunting the government to sack him. In a
letter to the prime minister that was quickly leaked, VK Singh complained that
delays in arms purchases had made his army unfit for war; he gave media
interviews that roiled civil-military tensions; and attended a public function
that was linked with an opposition party. Since he retired, he has associated
with Anna Hazare’s dharna and appeared with Narendra Modi at a public rally.

Given his animus
and his ambitions it is hardly surprising that VK Singh has lambasted the
government. Some of that criticism is deserved, given the government’s neglect
of the military over the decades. It is welcome that an army chief has parted
the shroud of secrecy that has too long hidden negligence in national security
decision-making. Yet, the author’s bias and obvious motivations seriously
damage his credibility. How much credence can be placed in the account of a former
army chief who has claimed that the army was paying off J&K politicians and
then, having seriously eroding their credibility with their constituencies,
walked away from that statement?

This
untrustworthiness annihilates what could otherwise have been an important book.
There is inherent readability in the tale of an army officer who carved out an
exceptional career path, and his travails and triumphs through the 1971 war,
the Sri Lanka campaign, stints on the line of control (LoC), demanding courses
in the United States and high command all the way up to the army chief’s
office. Indeed the sections where VK Singh recounts life in the army are the
most readable parts of the book. But an agenda keeps resurfacing, with the
author projecting himself ham-handedly as a crusader who was evicted because he
battled corruption and money-making.

Megalomania
might be a strong word, but the author certainly holds himself in high esteem.
He describes himself as a Tanwer, “one of the thirty-six ruling races of
India.” He recounts how a large cobra entered the house where VK Singh, then
one year old, was playing on the floor alone. When word spread, people came
running only to find the infant “happily playing with the cobra.” Any
resemblance to Krishna and the legend of Kaliya Nag is presumably coincidental.

Hovering
like a malevolent phantom over most of the book is VK Singh’s disputed birth
certificate, which caused his confrontation with the government. This is so even
in accounts of his childhood, spent with his extended family in their village,
their “bronze, chiselled faces” giving him confidence that “not one of them…
would ever bend with the wind.” This not-so-subtle characterisation foresees the
author’s humiliating rebuff from the Supreme Court, where a judge observed, in
jest more than seriously, “Wise people are those who move with the winds.”

Just 24
pages into the book, VK Singh brings the issue of his birth date into the open
and returns to it with groan-inducing frequency. While presenting his version in
detail, he glosses over the big question --- why did he thrice accept the
army’s decision on his birth date, only to challenge that later in court? His
answer --- poor advice.

It is hard
to avoid concluding that the author has a victimisation complex, given the
indiscrimination with which he distributes blame, denouncing now one set of
people and now another for essentially the same thing. First he blames an
earlier army chief, General JJ Singh, for planning a “line of succession”, that
required him to retire on a particular day so that he would be succeeded by
General Bikram Singh (the current chief). A few pages later, he alleges that he
was pushed out by powerful enemies he made in exposing the Sukhna land scam,
the Adarsh Housing Society scam, the Tatra vehicle procurement scam and various
dodgy arms deals. In a line redolent with delusion, he writes, “I knew I wasn’t
suffering from any paranoia… the same people were involved, different circles
with overlapping areas of interest, yet with a common core supporting them.”

The author
raises important issues relating to the army’s combat readiness and equipment
procurement processes, both areas that would benefit from openness and public
debate. But VK Singh writes more like a schoolboy than an army chief, making it
difficult to take him seriously. Describing the equipment shortages that
emerged during the Kargil conflict in 1999, he says “Babus were running around
the globe with suitcases of cash, looking for ammunition.”

Making the
preposterous allegation that the government allocates the defence budget each
year with the specific intention of taking much of it back for populist
expenditures, he speculates on the MoD’s reaction after “sabotaging”
expenditure one year --- “I am quite sure there must have been lot of clinking
of glasses and high fives amidst the powers that be (sic).”

This kind
of Pidgin English keeps popping up disconcertingly. Someone worked out a
“knock-kneed plan”; his commanding officer gave him “a real rollicking”
(meaning bollocking, not a good time). The blame for this gobbledegook rests
with Kunal Verma, who VK Singh has written the book with. Verma, a long time
military groupie who has been paid crores of rupees from the defence budget to
write self-congratulatory coffee-table books, has added little value to the
book.

In the
final balance, “Courage and Conviction” is worth a close read. It provides
interesting accounts of life in the army and a stunning insight into the mind
of an army chief who went rogue. There are gripping accounts of the Sri Lanka
debacle, the 1984 Operation Blue Star attack on the Golden Temple, the Operation
Parakram fiasco and the internal fault lines within the army. The author does
not hesitate to allocate blame to well-known names, but always emerges as the
good guy himself. General VK Singh clearly believes that more important than
making history is to write it.